


The Successor

by wishingforatypewriter



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27908764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishingforatypewriter/pseuds/wishingforatypewriter
Summary: The matriarch of Zaofu had a nonbender daughter and a metalbending protege, and each of them grew up feeling as though she had been cast aside in favor of the other.
Relationships: Baatar Jr./Kuvira (Avatar), Baatar Sr./Suyin Beifong, Bolin/Opal (Avatar), Korra/Asami Sato, Varrick/Zhu Li Moon
Comments: 29
Kudos: 64





	1. Moon Flower Child (Opal)

  
Most residents of Zaofu adored her mother’s meteorite garden—the oblong hunks of space rock on display, ready to be molded into marvels by any metalbender with enough skill and imagination—but Opal had always preferred the flowerbeds. Since she was a child, she loved to lie among the fire lilies and dream daisies, watching the warm breeze send petals of plum blossoms scattering across the grounds. She had always found it soothing to watch the natural world do what it was meant to, as she wondered what her own purpose would be. 

“I thought I’d find you here.” When Opal shifted her gaze from the trees and the wind and their quiet work, her mother was standing above her, wearing an amused expression. “One day I’ll come out and find you’ve turned into a dream daisy or a garden spirit.”

Opal shook her head a little, but still accepted the hand her mother extended to her, and the single gold and ivory bloom she placed behind her ear. “Mom, aren’t you supposed to be in rehearsal?”

When she was in the planning stages of a new performance, it was rare for her to emerge from the dance studio before dinner. “We ended early today,” she said. “I thought we could have lunch together in the pavilion. It feels like it’s been weeks since we’ve done anything, just the two of us.”

In actuality, it had been over three months. Time often got away from her mother. But instead of correcting her, Opal smiled gently. “I’d like that,” she said, and they started walking together. “How’s the dance going?”

“Oh, it’s been wonderful! One of your brother’s new sculptures inspired it, actually. You know the one that looks like a bud?”

Opal laughed a bit at this. “Huan said it was supposed to be a lionturtle.”

“Oh, was it?” Her mother blinked a few times in surprise, and then waved the matter off. “At any rate, when I saw it, I was just moved to choreograph a tribute to spring. I’m putting Luli and Kuvira in the lead roles this time. They’re both so graceful on the cables.”

Opal did all she could to suppress the urge to roll her eyes. Her mother could hardly go five minutes without singing the praises of her metalbending protege, who seemed to have magically appeared on their doorstep as soon as she accepted the fact that Junior, Huan, and Opal herself would all make poor successors. She wondered—more often than it was kind to admit—whether Kuvira would be in their lives at all if Wing and Wei had been the oldest. 

Instead of replying with something petty, she simply stepped inside the platinum-topped pavilion and trusted that her mother would fill the silence. She always did. The serving staff appeared with kale wraps and vegetable dumplings as soon as they sat down.

“So what have you been up to lately?” her mother asked, as though she didn’t have Aiwei keep tabs on Opal and all of her siblings. 

“Mostly reading,” she replied. “The papers say the United Republic might send its military to intervene in the Water Tribes’ civil war. If other nations become involved in the conflict—”

Her mother waved the comment off. “There’s no need to be frightened by ugly matters like that, sweetheart.” She reached for Opal’s hand across the table. “You’ll always be safe here in Zaofu.”

She was about to open her mouth to explain that she wasn’t afraid—just concerned about the state of world affairs, as any informed citizen should be—when Aiwei emerged at her mother’s side out of nowhere. 

“My apologies for interrupting, Miss Opal.” He offered her a formal smile, and then leaned down to whisper something in her mother’s ear.

Whatever he said set off a transformation. In an instant, her mother’s posture and expression were plated in steel, and she stepped seamlessly into the cold armor of the metal clan matriarch.

“Alert the Parks and the Tans immediately; they’re stakeholders. Tell them we’ll meet in my study in thirty minutes,” she told him, already rising from her chair. 

“Of course, Suyin,” Aiwei replied, his eyes low in deference. 

“And have Kuvira meet me in ten. I need to brief her before the others arrive.”  
  
“Naturally,” the man said. “I will inform the captain at once.” He bowed elegantly and then disappeared as though swallowed by the earth itself. 

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” her mother said as she gestured for the staff to clear her plates. “Would you hate me if we had to cut this short?”

“Of course not,” Opal replied, out of habit if not anything else. “Is everything okay?” She supposed the question was out of habit as well. She couldn’t remember the last time they had actually discussed something serious. 

“Everything’s fine, dear. Queen Hou Ting just seems to have made a very poor choice.” She leaned down and kissed the top of Opal’s head. “Nothing for you to worry your head over.”

“The queen? Is this about the mines—”

“Will you press some flowers for me later?” She asked the question in a voice like a wall of iron shooting up between them. “I’ve always loved the way you do the fire lilies.”

“Of course, mom,” Opal said, hands folded behind her back so her mother wouldn’t see the fingernails piercing half-moons into her palms. 

“My sweet moon flower child." Her mother pressed a hand against Opal’s cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she replied, playing the role she had been given—becoming the innocent, obedient nonbending daughter once again. More often than not, it was pointless trying to be anything else. “See you at dinner.”


	2. Someone to Rely On (Kuvira)

Kuvira had learned years ago that the fastest way to move between the city pods was to launch cables at the domes and then swing. Back when she was twelve or thirteen, she had asked Baatar to time her runs against the tram—for science’s sake, of course—and she always managed to beat it by at least a few minutes. The only downside was that it was illegal—thanks to the botched landings of some less coordinated copycats—and since becoming a captain of the security force, Kuvira tried to avoid breaking the law whenever she could help it. Being perceived as a hypocrite was bad for morale and even worse for public relations. But today the law was of no consequence; she had been summoned. 

Still gliding above the Beifong estate, she flicked her wrist to turn the metal latch on the window in Su’s study and bend it open, somersaulting inside just as the matriarch took a seat on one of the sleek green couches. 

Suyin regarded her with half a grin and a small shake of the head. “Right on time, Kuvira,” she said, pouring herself a cup of kombucha from a glass jug. "And Aiwei told me you'd never make it.”

Kuvira pulled a face at the mention of the truth seer. No sooner than she had put the key in the door to her apartment after rehearsal, Su’s advisor radioed, telling her to drop everything and rush back to the matriarch’s residence. It happened often enough that she was honestly beginning to question the utility of moving out. 

“Not if I had waited for the tram,” she replied with a smirk, reeling the cables back into the spool attached to her belt. 

“No, I suppose not.” Su laughed a little and gestured for Kuvira to sit beside her. “Kombucha?” 

“I’m fine.” Kuvira tried not to wrinkle her nose at it. If the weird pit floating at the bottom of the bottle wasn’t enough of a deterrent, the muddy color of it did her in. 

Su merely shrugged. “Your loss.” 

“I thought you were having lunch with Opal today,” Kuvira said, knowing the little tyrant would find some way to blame her for the canceled plans. Whatever it was that had compelled her mentor to abandon the company of her favorite child must have been serious. "What happened?" 

"There's been some troubling news.” Suyin crossed one leg over the other. “You’re aware that the Earth Queen has tried to levy new taxes on Zaofu in the past year?”

It was hardly a question. Kuvira had been the audience for the bulk of her anti-monarchist tirades for years. The matriarch never discussed matters of state with her children, lest the weight of politics ‘disrupt the flow of their creative energies.’ 

“And you refused.” She had helped Su and her advisors go over the ledgers the month before, and they hadn’t sent even a copper piece more than usual up to the capital. 

“Of course I did. Why should the metal clan pay because her people can’t control the bandits in the north?” 

The point was valid enough, but a distant part of Kuvira also wondered why the metal clan should walk on streets of gold while people starved a day’s drive from Zaofu.

“There wouldn’t be bandits in the first place if she would use the tax money she already receives to see to the welfare of the poorer states.” Kuvira said this in place of what she was really thinking; she had learned over the years that it was more pragmatic to commiserate with Suyin than to challenge her. “What kind of leader builds new palaces while her people die in slums?”

“An Earth Kingdom ruler, I’m afraid.” Su sighed and leaned back against the couch cushions. “Ba Sing Se has been corrupt since before my grandparents were born. That actually brings me to why I called you here. My informants at court have reported that the queen sent soldiers to appropriate a shipment of raw platinum from our mines.”

“We can afford the loss,” Kuvira stated, pulling the figures from her working memory. “But you’re selling the platinum to Varrick Industries so they can build more mechs for the Southern Water Tribe.” 

Suyin glanced at her then, her mouth curving up into a genuine smile. “Do I really tell you everything the moment it happens, or are you just exceedingly clever?”

Kuvira filtered out the praise, waiting for the true nature of the task to reveal itself. Compliments always preceded ugly work. “So you want me and the guards to intercept them and protect the platinum?”

“It has to be a stealth mission, executed by a small team,” Su told her. “You have full access to the metal armory, but there can be no uniforms or anything else that might be tied back to Zaofu, in case there are any passers-by. Let the queen think her men were set upon by more bandits.”

“And in reality?” she asked, though it was hardly necessary at this point. 

“I think it would be best if they were lost in the Si Wong Desert.” The matriarch took a measured sip of her kombucha. “Don’t you?”

The first time she had asked for such a thing—in a similarly roundabout way—Su hadn’t been able to look at her. Even now, she avoided her eyes, fixing her gaze instead on the model of Zaofu that her husband had so carefully constructed so she could bask in the sunny glow of her wealth and accomplishments. But regardless of whatever guilt she felt or feigned, come nightfall Kuvira would be dispatched to secure the interests, dirty the hands, do all the things she’d never ask of the people she loved more.

“I’ll leave tonight.” She rose quickly, turning her back to the matriarch, lest her face reveal more than it should. She already had fingertips on the door before her mentor spoke again. 

“One more thing. Do you think you can be back before Thursday’s rehearsal? The set should be done by then, and I’d love to see you and Luli emerging from the petals. I just know it’s going to be a great finale.” 

She closed her eyes, breathed, and schooled her expression into cool neutrality before turning back around. “Of course, Suyin. I’ll make it quick.” 

It must have said something horrible about her, the way the proud, adoring gaze her mentor fixed on her was almost worth the blood. 

“That’s such a relief. I’m so glad I can always rely on you, Kuvira.” 


	3. A Love Like Closed Doors (Opal)

When Opal was about eight years old, she had asked to be trained in the nonbending martial arts. She had no real interest in fighting—always having preferred more peaceful activities like her older brothers—but seeing as though she could not invent, paint, or metalbend, she figured that becoming a competent fighter would be her only chance at staying relevant. 

Her mother had indulged the request, guiding her through stance training and having her practice simple katas. But after she had taken a bad fall during one session, resulting in a sprained wrist and bloody nose, the lessons stopped abruptly. 

Opal had not been the sort of child taken to screaming tantrums, running away, or hunger strikes. Nonbenders learned to take up less space; she and Junior were always the best behaved of the siblings. But when her mother put an end to her training, she had raged. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks, and she stormed all the way to the tram station on the edge of the estate, mustering the courage to get on the rail and go somewhere, and ignoring the kind pleading of the guards who offered to bring her home. She missed lunch and dinner and would have stayed out all night, stewing in her frustration, had her father not come down to get her. 

“She thinks I can’t do anything!” she had said as soon as her father sat down beside her on the cold metal bench. 

He'd rested a comforting hand on her back. “Sweetheart, your mother thinks you are very capable—”

“Then why won’t she train me?” Opal had asked. “Wing and Wei and Kuvira have training accidents all the time. She throws _rocks_ at them!”

Her father sighed, removing his glasses to clean them on the end of his tunic, the way he often did when considering a particularly challenging mathematical problem. “Opal, you are your mother’s entire word. If anything ever happened to you, I don’t think she’d survive it,” he told her. “I know she can be a bit overprotective sometimes, but she only worries because she loves you so much.” 

Opal had taken her father’s word for it, grabbed his hand, and went back home to fall into her mother’s arms. After seeing the tortured look on her face, the concerned forehead creases that aged her by decades, she never mentioned the lessons again. 

She hadn’t realized it then, but it was at that moment that she accepted a love like closed doors, a life filled with pressed flowers and pretty half-truths. Had she known it at the time, would she have fought harder?

* * *

It was nearly midnight, but the dome around the house was still down, even though all the others in the city had gone up at the usual time. Huan was out on the lawn with his easel, painting an abstract rendition of the night sky, and the twins had decided to hold a late-night power disc match. Opal wanted nothing more than to be jubilant like them and take this rare opportunity to stargaze without question, but she couldn’t help but consider how odd it was for the domes to be down this late—and on a Wednesday night, no less. 

She had been on her way to ask one of the guards on duty—hoping they might mistake her for someone who should to know things—when she caught sight of her mother pacing up and down the foyer. She continued for a minute or so before a young guard approached her. 

“Would you like for us to raise them, ma’am?” he asked.

“No, leave them down, Hong-Li,” her mother replied with an impatient edge to her voice. “She said she’d be back before tomorrow.” 

Hong-Li—who only looked a year or so older than Opal herself—was visibly shaken by his boss' displeasure. “I...um, would you like for us to try radioing the captain? Maybe we could find out what’s keeping her.” 

“They didn’t bring radios. It was too much of a risk.” Opal saw her mother start wringing her hands like she hadn’t since great-grandma Poppy’s health began to fail. She caught herself soon after and clasped her hands in front of her, but the pacing only resumed. “Just leave them down until she’s back or I say otherwise.” 

“Yes, ma’am!” Hong-Li gave a short bow and then left to continue his rounds. 

Once he was gone, her mother stopped in the middle of the foyer, looking unusually small in contrast with the long hallway and colored glass windows that extended from ceiling to floor. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes for a moment, and exhaled deeply. 

“Opal, sweetie, I know you’re there.”

Opal started, suddenly feeling quite foolish for lurking in the stairwells. “Mom, are you alright?” she asked once she had made her way down the steps. “You seem stressed.” 

“I’m fine.” She gave a fragmented smile that was meant to reassure her. “I’ve just been preoccupied with...making arrangements for the delegation from Omashu.” 

Opal did all she could to keep the incredulity from showing on her face. She knew from experience that she would need to meet her mother where she was. “Maybe I can help you plan for it,” she said. “I’ll bring some tea up to your study and we can work out some of the details.”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” she said, clasping Opal's hands. “I’d like that.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were sipping chamomile tea on green couches and planning the menu for the king’s welcome feast. 

“Maybe the elephant-koi on the first day,” Opal proposed. “And we can have the kitchen pair it with a papaya salad.”

“King Yudai always preferred lobster-crab,” her mother said offhandedly.

“Lobster-crab it is, then,” Opal said, making a note in the planner. 

“And we’ll have to have a pork roast,” her mother added before taking a sip of her tea. 

Opal tilted her head to the side, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Mom, you don’t eat pork,” she pointed out. In fact, the only people in the house who did were the twins, who only knew the taste of it because Grandma Toph had given them exposure just before she disappeared. 

Her mom made a face and then gave a small shrug. “I don’t, but Yudai loves the stuff. He always wants it after he travels.” 

“It sounds like you know the King of Omashu pretty well,” Opal said. 

Her mother laughed a little. “Well, we were engaged once.”

Opal blinked a few times, searching her mom’s face for any signs of a joke. “You were  _ what _ ?”

“Come on. I must have told you this story a million times.” 

Opal’s lips flattened into a tight line. No, she probably told Kuvira, who she had actually brought with her on her last state visit to Omashu two years ago. But it would be unhelpful in the extreme to bring up the guard captain now. “It’s late,” she said, feigning a yawn. “Remind me?” It had never taken much to draw a story out of her mother. 

“I met him while I was living with my grandparents,” she explained with a wistful sigh. Opal knew that both of Grandma Toph’s parents had passed away years ago. “My grandfather had business in Omashu, so they brought me to court, knowing that I’d probably skip town if they didn’t. While he made his contracts, my Grandma Poppy dressed me up in silk and gold and took me to the king’s earthbending tournament. Before the first round, King Yudai—well, he was Prince Yudai back then—stopped right in front of me and asked me for my favor.”

“Your what?” Opal asked, drawing more laughter from her mother. 

“I had no clue either! Toph certainly didn’t raise us to be aware of the rules of noble courtship.” She shook her head. “He was asking for me to give him a token of mine—like a silk sash or a hairpin—to bring him luck in the tournament. I didn’t have anything like that, so I took my wrist guard and bent it into a bracelet with patterns of badgermoles and earth discs. Metalbending was rare in this region back then, so I suppose I left an impression." She nibbled the edge of her lip, remembering. "He won every match that day, but only because _I_ wasn't competing.” 

“And then he just proposed?” Opal asked, her eyebrows shooting up. 

“After a few months of courtship,” she said. “We went on a few chaperoned excursions—some in Omashu, some in Gaoling. He even took me to Ember Island once.” 

“But you’re not Queen of Omashu,” Opal pointed out, wondering whether her mother could be exaggerating. “What happened? Did you not love him?”

“I think I did at the time,” her mother said, staring out the window, up at the starlit sky. “But I was seventeen years old. I hadn’t lived yet, and I knew that if I married into royalty, I never would. So a few weeks before my eighteenth birthday, I ran away and joined a traveling circus.” 

Opal just blinked slowly. “Unbelievable.” 

A circus performer? An almost-queen? What else had her mother been before Zaofu?

She had been poised to ask one of about a million follow-up questions when Hong-Li came into the room, bowing to them both. “Ma’am, the captain and her team have returned.” 

Her mother stood instantly, relief and anxiety dueling for control of her countenance. “Where—”

“Seeing that her team receives medical care, ma’am, and then on her way up to you.” 

“Thank the spirits,” she said quietly. “Opal, would you mind if—” 

“On my way out,” Opal said, knowing well what was coming next. Wherever Kuvira had been, whatever she had done, would be yet another closed door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, everyone! Happy holidays!


	4. The Ones Who Were Lost (Kuvira)

“You sure took your sweet time,” Suyin said as soon as Kuvira entered her study. The matriarch was standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed in front of her and wearing a vaguely troubled expression. “I was beginning to think we’d have to leave the dome down all night.”

Annoyance surged through Kuvira’s body like a shirshu’s toxin; there was never any pleasing her. “You said a few guards. If you had mentioned that the queen was sending a legion of Dai Li agents I could have—”

“Dai Li?” Su’s impassive stance broke then, eyes going wide and arms falling to her sides. “Are you sure? She would never send them this far south of the capital.”

“Well, apparently she would.” Kuvira responded to her mentor’s disbelief with a shrug that sent white hot pain flaring through her left shoulder. She let out a short cry as her hand flew up to grip the arm at the bicep. 

“You’re hurt?” Su crossed the distance between them within seconds and rested a hand on Kuvira's cheek. The gesture was gentle, motherly, so unlike the Suyin of recent years that Kuvira nearly shrugged away. "What happened?" 

Kuvira glanced away from her mentor, unsure of how she should respond. "It got dislocated, but I popped it back in. It's fine."

"’It's fine,’ she says.” Su rolled her eyes and guided Kuvira to the nearest couch, then slid down the sleeve of her black shirt to look more closely at the injury. “I can already tell there's swelling at the joint. Wait here while I send for a healer.” 

“Su, really—” 

The matriarch pinned her under the weight of a stern gaze, preempting any further protests.

Kuvira was made to sip her mentor’s top shelf plum wine on the couch—Suyin’s ultimate conciliatory gesture—while a water healer diluted the pulsing pain in her shoulder down to a muted ache. 

“To think she’d send Dai Li to rob us,” Suyin said, once the healer was out of earshot. By this point, the matriarch had already finished a glass of her own. “You were able to handle them, though?”

And there it was—the raised eyebrow, the expectant gaze. Back to business, already. 

Kuvira almost flinched at the mention of the grizzly errand, but she managed to reign it in and keep her posture steady, back straight, face blank—professional. “Lost to the desert, like you asked.”

“And the platinum?”

“On its way to Varrick Industries. Your associate should have it within the week.”

“Good.” Suyin refilled her own glass of plum wine and topped Kuvira’s off. “The kingdom’s coffers must truly be close to empty for her to have pulled a stunt like that. This conference with King Yudai and his advisors can’t come soon enough.”

Kuvira held back a sigh; she had almost forgotten that was happening. “Do you really think Omashu is serious about breaking ties with Ba Sing Se?” 

“Before the Hundred Year War, Omashu and the other wealthy southern states were virtually independent for centuries,” Su explained, recalling the stories of her ancestors and the times in which the Beifongs made their great fortune. “It was only the military aggression from the Fire Nation that forced the entire kingdom to come together, but that threat is long gone.”

“That’s true,” Kuvira said, the wine loosening her tongue a bit. “But the Earth Kingdom's economy never completely recovered from the war because Avatar Aang didn’t want to make his best friend pay reparations.”

“Aang was a good man.” Suyin said firmly. “He was like an uncle to me.” She smirked behind the rim of her glass all the while. “And haven’t I taught you that there are things we shouldn’t say out loud?” 

“Not saying it doesn’t make it less true,” Kuvira countered. “We never got the trading hubs on the northwest coast back. We never saw a single coin for all the resources that were taken from our land.”

“All the more reason for us to stop sending our money to be squandered on the Earth Queen’s new landscaping projects,” Su said. 

Kuvira sighed again, the beginnings of a headache blooming at her temples. It was like her body was only beginning to register that she had barely slept in days. “But won’t the people suffer if two of the wealthiest states pull out of the kingdom?” 

Two at minimum. If she were being completely honest, wherever Zaofu and Omashu went, Gaoling and Shuijing would surely follow. 

Suyin waved the comment off. “Likely little more than they are already, and if things become dire enough, our states will welcome them with open arms.” The matriarch put her feet up on the couch, swirling her wine. “The universe has a way of putting people where they belong. It sent you here to us, after all.”

Kuvira took a deep breath, staring down into her plum wine and focusing all her attention on not shattering the glass in her hands. The universe had only ‘sent her’ to Zaofu because her father’s friend was the only person in the town who owned an ostrich-horse. If any other person decided to throw their child away, the universe would have sent them to a ditch or the side of the road. 

The thought brought back flashes of Dai Li hats sticking up in the sand dunes like mushroom caps before they got sucked down into the abyss. Kuvira’s stomach lurched and the plum wine in her glass transformed into a goblet of blood. 

She set the glass down on the table in front of her and rested her forehead on her knees, eyes screwing shut as she commanded her body not to be sick in front of her mentor.

“Kuvira?” Su asked, resting a hand on her back. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” It took her a moment to raise her head and force her words to return. “I’m just tired.”

“You must be exhausted,” the matriarch said. “I had the household staff prepare a guest room. Get some rest. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

The guest room was larger than the one she’d been given as a child. With the innumerable cushions scented with jasmine and marble bath wide enough to swim in, she supposed it was one of the ones she reserved for the important visitors—the poets and philosophers, the world leaders and arms dealers. No doubt Kuvira was worth far more to her now as an instrument of war than she’d been back then. 

She soaked in the bath until the water turned cool and her skin shriveled, then dressed for bed and hoped sleep would claim her quickly. It didn’t, even though she lacked the energy to do anything but stare up at the ceiling and wonder whether the men who’d been lost to the desert had families, whether they’d loved their daughters, and whether said daughters would be lost to a ditch or the side of the road or a life in which they were only cared for to whatever extent they were useful. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, everyone! 
> 
> Suyin having an ulterior motive for not wanting to stabilize the Earth Kingdom is a headcanon hill that I will die on lol. 
> 
> I originally planned to have a baavira scene at the end of this chapter, but I ultimately felt like it clashed with the overall mood, so I decided to hold off on the ships. Let's just imagine that Baatar brings her breakfast in bed the next morning (if y'all are into that).


	5. On Mothers and Brothers (Opal)

If there had been a part of Opal that doubted her mother’s story about her past with the King of Omashu, it was quelled the moment the royal delegation began its slow trickle into Zaofu. In the days before the king reached their city, a seemingly endless procession of attendants arrived by airship and caravan, bearing what could only be interpreted as the tokens of a love long denied—singing-doves in gilded cages and bolts of silk in bejeweled chests, perfumes housed in sleek decanters and ancient maps in lacquered frames. 

With each passing hour, Opal became surer that every person in the Earth Kingdom—let alone Zaofu—must have known of the king's affections. As her mother drank in the attention like a fire lily planted in the sun, her father receded, disappearing into the shadows of his workshop for longer stretches than ever before. In all the excitement, no one else seemed to notice this dynamic, least of all her mother.

And of course, Opal—along with her brother, Huan—had somehow become responsible for helping to catalog all the gifts. 

Glancing up from the potted fig tree she was pushing across the foyer, she saw her brother lean back against a pile of embroidered cushions, parsing through an illuminated manuscript of the Epic of Oma and Shu. 

“You think this is first edition?” he asked, peering down to better examine the intricate bordering on the pages. 

Opal only groaned. At this rate, the king would arrive and leave before they were halfway done. “Huan, stay focused!”

Her brother merely shrugged in response. “I’m about as focused as mom is.”

“I heard that,” their mother said without looking up from the strand of blinding pearls coiled around her right wrist. “I was just taking a moment to admire these. Yokoya pearls were my grandmother’s favorite.” 

Her eyes went misty then, as they always did when she thought of Great-grandma Poppy. After the moment passed, she shook her head and then went over to Opal, looping a segment of the pearls around her neck. “We should make a necklace for you—a long strand, the way they wear them in Republic City.” 

“Thanks for the offer, mom,” Huan said pointedly. 

“We’ll make you one, too, sweetie,” she replied, not missing a beat. “Yudai sent two whole baskets of these. That man must have had pearl divers in every ounce of water between Chin and Kyoshi Island.” 

“That’s dedication,” Huan said, casting the manuscript aside for the latest crate the guards hauled inside. To Opal, it sounded more like pillage or the breaking of an ecosystem, but she thought it better to hold her tongue.

A few minutes later, the young guard, Hong-Li, dropped off a small, unmarked box that he said had been mailed separately. Before Opal could open it, her brother took the box, face screwed up in concentration as he surveyed it. 

“What are you doing?” she asked. 

“Just making sure it’s not a bomb or something.” He handed it back. “A necklace.” 

“Who would send a bomb to us?”

Huan opened his mouth to respond, and then glanced at their mother, now occupied with a tapestry, but still well within earshot. “Just open the box, little sis.”

Opal rolled her eyes, but did it anyway. It was a massive square cut emerald, suspended from an earth disc symbol and hung on a platinum chain. The piece was stately and restrained, lacking the lavish, whimsical quality of the other gems King Yudai sent to her mother. Opal picked the necklace up and studied it, waiting for the sparkle of some hidden diamond, but it never came. 

She’d been ready to call Hong-Li back and ask whether the gift had been misdelivered when she noticed a small handwritten note at the bottom of the box. 

> _I eagerly await our rematch, lieutenant._
> 
> _Yours, in impatience and lasting awe,_
> 
> _Yusei_

“Lieutenant?” Opal said after she read the note and handed it to Huan. 

“It’s for Kuvira,” her brother said after looking for about a tenth of a second. 

“How do you know that—”

“I assumed so based on the necklace alone, but the note makes it a certainty,” Huan said. “Which other metal guard do you know with enough job security to get away with fighting royalty?” 

“Yeah, point taken.” Their mother had always let her protege get away with murder.

“Only one question remains.” Huan then turned his attention back to their mother. “Mom, who’s Yusei?”

She looked up from the decorative dagger she'd been examining, inlaid with gold and lapis lazuli. “Oh, he’s Yudai's older son.”

“The crown prince?” Opal said, her mouth all but hanging open. In all honesty, she was less impressed than tempted by the idea of Kuvira getting married and moving far away. Huan seemed to follow her train of thought and nudged her in the ribs. 

Their mother made an uncomfortable face. “Well, no. Not exactly,” she said, hedging her words. “Yusei is the king’s firstborn son, but he isn’t...well, the queen isn’t his mother.” 

“Does that matter?” Opal asked. 

“Not in any sane person’s opinion, but you know how old fashioned most of the Earth Kingdom can be when it comes to these things,” her mother explained. “It’s such a shame, too. Yusei is the stronger brother by far.” 

Because strength and power were _clearly_ the only things that made a good leader. Opal tried very hard not to roll her eyes, but Huan did it for her, anyway. She decided at that moment that she would prefer the younger son of Omashu out of spite. 

When the king finally arrived on their doorstep, along with a sizable entourage of servants and advisors, her mother ran to him, standing on her tip-toes to kiss the imposing man on both cheeks—heedless of the royal protocol she’d had Opal memorize and then drill into her brothers. 

“Suyin, it has been too long,” he said, pulling her into a lingering embrace. “Were the presents to your liking?”

“Everything was beautiful,” she gushed. “Especially those pearls. My grandmother always loved them.” 

“I remember,” he said in a voice as smooth as river rocks. “Lady Poppy was a woman of great taste and distinction. Her granddaughter is the same.” 

“You flatter me, as always,” her mother said, eyes lowered demurely. 

The entire scene made Opal want to throw up in her mouth, but at least she could now confirm that they weren’t having an affair. Any affair of her mother’s would be less flagrant, held close to her chest and safeguarded with tight smiles and evasive words like her secret missions and political machinations. An affair of the heart between the Zaofu matriarch and the King of Omashu was the story she planned for passers by to whisper in taverns and along trade routes; that was the story she wanted the Earth Queen to hear, if she heard anything at all. 

Though she understood this logically, Opal was glad that her father had remained in his workshop.

“Please,” the king said, “introduce me to your beautiful family.” 

“Of course.” Her mother turned back to them, all neatly lined up where she’d left them, as though she’d briefly forgotten they were there. “These are my youngest sons, Wing and Wei, the metalbending prodigies.” 

“I have no doubts,” the king said, pausing to greet them both. “Will they be joining our talks this week?”

Her mother paused then and glanced at the twins, actually considering the possibility. “Next time,” she finally said before deciding to move on. “These are my other two sons, Baatar Junior and Huan.”

The king nodded at them briefly, clearly less impressed than he’d been with the twins, and Opal felt a flash of indignation on behalf of her brothers. But she was only allowed a few seconds to fume before her mother beckoned her over. 

“My daughter, Opal,” she said, taking her hand, “intelligent, beautiful, and kind beyond all measure.” 

“Just like her mother,” he said, regarding her with a slight bow. “May I introduce my son, the crown prince of Omashu?” 

Just then a boy around her age emerged from the procession, dressed in the deep purple and earth tones of the royal house in Omashu. He gave a deep, courteous bow. “I am honored to meet you, Lady Opal,” he said, presenting her with a bracelet of gold and the stone she was named for. “Please accept this token of my appreciation for Zaofu’s hospitality.”

Opal responded with a shy smile, allowing him to fasten the bracelet to her wrist. “You’re too kind,” she said. “It’s good to meet you as well, Prince Dai.”

“You’re getting married off,” Huan whispered to her, once she was back in line with her siblings. In response, Opal stepped on his foot as discreetly as possible. 

“A veritable army, but where is your older girl?” the king asked her mother.

“Older?” she asked, perplexed. “Oh, you must mean Kuvira. She’s with the other Zaofu delegates, preparing our security strategy. And your other son?”

“He does the same. Good, then, that they are already well acquainted.” 

Her mother gave a short laugh. “That’s one way of putting it,” she said. “Shall we begin, or would you prefer to rest first?”

“Better that we get straight to it, and leave matters of leisure until after dark.”

Her mother smiled, taking his arm. “I couldn’t agree more,” she said. “The attendants will show your people to their rooms."

The two then disappeared inside the house, flanked by a handful of officials from Omashu. Prince Dai was not among them. 

“In case you were wondering,” he said in a low voice, after her brothers and most of the king's men had dispersed, “they are not having an affair, despite my father’s best efforts.”

Opal gave a small, snorting laugh. “I gathered as much.” She started walking towards the flower garden, and the prince fell in step beside her. They were trailed at a distance by a pair of metal guards whose presence they wordlessly agreed to ignore. “Do you know what all of this is really about?” she whispered.

“Not in any detail,” he said, leaning in close as they both pretended to examine a flowering tree. “Only Yusei knows for sure. My father keeps his pai sho pieces close.” 

“My mother is the same way. The only people she really trusts are her advisor Aiwei and Kuvira.” Although she had been trying very hard not to make any particular face, Opal knew she had failed when Prince Dai chuckled. 

“I take it that you aren’t as fond of her as my older brother is.” 

“A safe assumption,” Opal replied dryly. “But if he likes her that much, she’ll be Omashu’s problem soon.” 

“I doubt it,” the prince said. “Attraction is one thing, but strategically, they both have much better prospects.”

“ _Kuvira_ has better prospects than the son of a king?” She stared at the prince incredulously. “You know she isn’t actually our sister, right?”

“Exactly,” Dai replied. “You have four brothers, correct?”

“I do, but—”

“And which one of them is in love with her?” He regarded her with a knowing, sympathetic look as the realization found purchase in her expression. “A strategic marriage could easily position her as your mother’s heir.”

A knot of dread coiled in Opal’s stomach. “I mean, you’re right in theory, but there’s no way. They’re not actually going to—” She waved her hand in front of her, dismissing the thought. It was true that Kuvira and her eldest brother had a strange affinity for one another, but marriage was a different matter entirely. 

The prince sent her another dazzling smile, this one laden with intent. “You’d be surprised how little it takes for a person to fall in love with their best chance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, everyone! Also, thanks for putting up with this segue arc (it's going to make more sense later, I promise). Harmonic Convergence is coming soon.


	6. On Allies and Lovers (Kuvira)

As soon as Kuvira stepped through the door to her apartment after rehearsal, she was greeted by the sight of Huan reading a magazine with his feet up on her couch. She grinned a bit and dropped her dance bag by the door on her way over to him. 

When she first gave Huan and his brother, Baatar, spare keys to her place, she hadn’t anticipated the extent to which they would make the third-floor walk-up their refuge. In the beginning the apartment had been threadbare, furnished with only the most basic necessities. It wasn’t like Kuvira needed much. Between the security force, the dance troupe, and the endless stream of odd jobs she ended up doing for Suyin, she often came home just to sleep. But the brothers had slowly filled the space with decorative art and hanging lights and houseplants—only succulents, of course, because anything less hardy would have died on her watch long ago. 

“To what do I owe the honor?” she asked, taking a seat on the arm of the couch. “Twins mess up another one of your sculptures?” 

“Probably,” he said. “I haven’t checked in a while. We’ve been stuck dealing with all of mom’s presents.” 

Kuvira gave a snorting laugh. “Looks like King Yudai is willing to put it all on the line this time.” 

“He’s not the only one.” Just then, Huan drew a small black box out of one of his pockets and handed it to her. “This came for you today. From  _ Yusei _ ,” the artist told her, eyebrows raised for emphasis. 

Kuvira blanched at the mention of his name—a visceral reminder of the last time she’d let go of her professionalism—even before unboxing the necklace. 

“Two years ago, I asked you if you hooked up with someone in Omashu, and you lied to my face.”

“Come on, Huan—”

“You were the first person I told after Teo Tan,” he pointed out. “We’re supposed to be friends.” 

“We are,” Kuvira said. “I just wanted to forget about it after. Su chewed me out so bad after Aiwei snitched and—” 

“Wait, _ my mother _ got mad at you for fooling around?” Huan asked incredulously. 

Kuvira had to bite the inside of her lip to keep from laughing. “No, she got mad at me for fooling around when I wasn’t on birth control.”

She shook her head, remembering the stern lecture on being careful and safeguarding her future that was followed immediately by raunchy stories about her mentor’s torrid love affairs on her pirate ship and in her sandbender commune—let alone what she had done with King Yudai himself. 

“Yeah, that tracks,” Huan said. “So what are you going to do now? Opal’s hoping to Yangchen that your prince proposes and whisks you back to Omashu.” 

Kuvira rolled her eyes at this. “Tell her not to hold her breath.” 

“Why?” Huan asked. “You’re finally ready to unpack your feelings for my brother?”

Wow. He was pulling no punches today. If Kuvira had known this would be the end result, she would’ve just told him back when it happened.

“You know what, my guard shift is starting in an hour.” She hopped off the arm of the chair and padded towards her bedroom. “There’s beer in the fridge. Let yourself out whenever.” 

“Let yourself feel,” he called to her as she slammed the door shut, “preferably before your ex lands in Zaofu.” 

Kuvira reopened the door for just long enough to say, “He’s not my ex,” and then firmly closed it again. 

* * *

The negotiations lasted long into the evening on that first day of the conference, and throughout the talks, Kuvira would periodically notice the king’s son appraising her with eyes the color of malachite. 

She fixed her gaze on the map that they’d raised on the stone surface, trying to remain focused on the conversation.

“We still contend that the best way to cement our alliance would be to join the Beifong family with the royal line of Omashu,” a bespectacled minister from the visiting delegation reasoned. The old man sat to the king’s left, dressed in heavy purple robes despite the warm weather. 

“As we’ve stated many times before,” Aiwei replied in an even tone, “Opal’s hand is not on the table.” 

King Yudai turned to Suyin then. “I know you believe your daughter is too young to marry.”

“She is.” 

“Then perhaps we can cement the alliance with these two instead,” he said, gesturing to Yusei and Kuvira herself. “They’re older, and I know my son at least would be amenable.” 

Kuvira went completely still, holding her breath as her mentor mulled her fate over. Su would never sell her precious only daughter for the sake of a political alliance—but a ward who had come from nothing, enjoying a privileged life on grace and borrowed time, was a different matter entirely. 

“That would be pointless,” Su said finally. “Yusei isn’t your heir.”

“And that one isn’t even your child,” the king replied. “Will you not meet us halfway?” 

“This is getting us nowhere,” Su said with a huff. “Alliances by marriage are outdated and unnecessary. I already gave you my word that we would be united in the secession.” 

“Just as you gave me your word that we would wed,” the king fired back. “And then you ran.”

“Honestly,” Su said, dragging out each syllable of the word. “That was over twenty-five years ago!”

“It isn’t personal, Suyin. I bear you no ill will over the past, but Omashu must have certainty this time.”

“Exactly what part of you harping on my dumping you when we were kids isn’t personal, Yudai?”

The whole room went silent and stone faced, as though Koh the Face-Stealer were in their midst, while monarch and matriarch stared each other down. Finally, Aiwei cleared his throat. 

“Perhaps we should take a recess,” the advisor said. “Reconvene in the morning?   


After the members of both delegations assented, the assembled began to disperse, following the smell of roasting pork and grilled elephant koi wafting up from the kitchens. Kuvira was considering grabbing a bite to eat herself, when Su tapped her arm and then led her to a corner for a private word. 

“I want you to work out models for what our defense plans could look like without Omashu,” she said.

“You think they’ll actually back out?” Kuvira asked.

“No, but the possibility of unilateral action from Zaofu will get them to fall in line,” Su explained. “In matters like these it’s important to project strength; remember that.” The matriarch then cut eyes to where Yusei leaned against the doorway, waiting. “Also, use him. Find out where his father really stands.”

“Got it.”

“And Kuvira,” her mentor said, her voice taking on a serious tone. 

She sighed. “Yes, Su?” 

“You may feel like I ruined something for you back there, but you have to trust me when I say you don’t want to be married this young, not even to a king’s son. Life has so much more in store for you than that.” With that the matriarch went down to dinner, leaving Kuvira alone with the prince. 

“It’s been a while, lieutenant.” Yusei got to her in only four strides. He had been tall when she had known him, but now Kuvira had to tilt her head up to meet his gaze.

“Captain now,” she said, smirking. 

“Captain Kuvira.” He smiled at her. “It suits you. I wonder, though—”

“If I’d kick your ass again in a rematch?” Kuvira asked. 

“If you still taste like plum wine and moonpeach,” he said, and then bent down to kiss her—once, twice. “You’re blushing, captain.”

“I’m at work,” Kuvira said, turning back towards the map to stop herself from slipping up. She darted her tongue across her lower lip when he couldn't see, just to taste him again. 

“You were at work last time too, if I remember correctly.” Yusei too turned to the map, his hand brushing against the side of hers. The brief touch sent tingles running up her arm like a glancing blow from a lightning bender. 

“Yes, and you nearly got me fired,” she said. 

“That woman would never fire you. I’d wager she values you over her own children.”

“Is that how it looks?” Kuvira made an unconvinced noise at the back of her throat. “What do you think about all of this, anyway?”

“The plan? It will make us richer. I served a tour with the United Forces last year,” he said. “Without Ba Sing Se and the Earth Queen holding us back, our states could prosper like Republic City.”

Kuvira rolled her eyes. “Republic City? Where all the richest citizens are the descendants of Fire Nation colonizers?”

“You can’t really think that,” Yusei said. “He’s locked up now after all of that with the Equalists, but Hiroshi Sato started out with nothing.”

“Nothing but a name that had once meant something back in Caldera. He wouldn’t have gotten investors any other way.”   


“You’re probably right,” he conceded. “But such views have fallen out of fashion, especially in the United Republic. The people there see themselves as a nation apart.”

“No one can be apart from history,” she said firmly. 

“We can only try.” Yusei drew a flask from his pocket and took a drink, then handed it over to her. “Your views on the United Republic are fascinating, captain, but what’s really bothering you?”

Kuvira looked again at the stone table, trailing her fingers over the regions just beyond the limits of Zaofu. “If we leave the Earth Kingdom, the poor are going suffer more.”

“Yes, of course, but they are the queen’s problem by law.”

“If the Earth Queen isn’t fit to rule us, she’s not fit to rule anyone,” Kuvira said. 

“So you want a revolution?”

“I want the same thing as you and Su and your father,” she told him. “I just want it for our entire nation. Don’t you?”

“I suppose so, in theory,” he said, looking entirely unmoved by her ideals. “But I doubt my father or your matriarch would find it worth the trouble. I have to say, I understand their point of view.”

Kuvira only sighed, wondering why she’d held out any hope that he would understand. He was a good distraction, but he'd never know her—not in any way that mattered. “I should finish these plans for Su.”

“Always so serious, captain.” Yusei leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Find me later in the guesthouse?”

“Yeah, maybe,” she said, her eyes already back on the model Earth Kingdom. 

* * *

By the time Kuvira was finished with the alternate plans and accompanying reports, the evening had long passed and the domes were up. She was making her way sluggishly towards the entrance of the estate, trying to remember who was manning the domes and whether she’d be able to take the Beifongs’ private tram back downtown when she saw Baatar emerging from his father’s workshop. The engineer regarded her with a warm smile. 

“Hey, Kuvira.”

“Hey,” she replied, yawning a bit.

“Long day?” he asked.

Kuvira nodded. “Longer one tomorrow.”

“You weren’t at dinner,” he said, and she was surprised he had noticed; most of the visiting delegation would have been in the dining room that evening. “Did you eat?”

“I’ll make something when I get home,” Kuvira said, waving off the hint of concern in his expression. Truthfully, the very idea of taking out pots and pans seemed unlikely in the extreme, but she knew he’d only worry otherwise. 

Baatar gave her a look. “Going off of precedent, you’ll probably drink half a beer and then fall asleep in your uniform.”   


“Uncalled for,” she said, crossing her arms. 

“Come on. Let’s get some food in you.” 

Baatar led Kuvira down a familiar route of long halls and back staircases that led into the kitchens, where they had often gone on childhood expeditions in search of ice pops and moonpeach tarts. Kuvira was more than surprised when he started taking out actual ingredients. She sat up on a counter top, watching as he folded dumplings with the ingredients left over from the evening’s feast.

“Since when do you know how to cook?”

“I wouldn’t say I can cook,” he told her as he put oil to frying pan and let it heat up. “I know how to make exactly three things. It was just enough to keep myself alive in Ba Sing Se.”

“What was it like over there?”  Although they had exchanged a few letters during the year he spent at the university, she had never really asked before—at least not in person.

“Well, the food was great,” he said;  _ of course _ that was where his mind went first. “You remember that tea shop I wrote about in my letters?”

Kuvira shook her head, laughing a bit. “How could I forget? Four pages about the jasmine alone.”

“And every line of it was necessary. I think you may have liked the oolong better, though,” he said. “It all depends on the—”

“Was there a point to this tangent, Baatar?” Kuvira tried her best to pin him under a judging stare, but the smile tugging at her lips undermined it. 

He flushed a bit. “Right. Well, I found out that the first owner was actually Lord Zuko’s uncle.”

"The Dragon of the West __ had a tea shop in Ba Sing Se of all places?” 

“Worked there until the day he died, apparently,” Baatar said. “That’s the thing about that city. It’s so big. No one knows who you are; no one cares. The only thing you’re known for is whatever you choose to do with yourself and whether you do it well.” 

He handed her a plate of fried dumplings then, plump and filled with pork and chives. 

“And what were you known for? Lopsided jiaozi?” she asked, chuckling a bit. 

“You’re the worst, you know?” he said, smiling despite himself. “But no. I was one of the power guys.”

“It is entirely too late at night for me to have to guess what that means,” she said between mouthfuls of dumpling and vinegar dip that tasted way better than she’d dared to hope. 

“A few of my friends and I were helping this professor tap power lines to give electricity to people living in the lower ring.”

“That sounds super illegal,” Kuvira said.

“It was,” he said. “But the rates they were charging people to get on that primitive power grid were criminal.” 

“Uh-huh,” Kuvira said, with no inkling of what made a grid better or worse. “You’re lucky you weren’t carted off by the Dai Li.”

“Well, my professor was after a few months. He disappeared one day right after lectures, and no one saw him since,” he told her with grief coloring his features. “We were all talking about whether we should keep going, and then a few days later an airship came in the middle of the night and brought me back to Zaofu. Did you know my mother has spies in the capital?”

“I did,” Kuvira said. “And thank the spirits for them. You would not do well in prison.”

“You’re probably right about that, but honestly I think what we were doing was worth it.”

“Really?” she asked. 

“I mean it’s inconceivable that in the largest city in the Earth Kingdom, there are tens of thousands of people living without electricity and running water. Someone had to do something.”

“You wanted to stay." The realization sent a spark of _something_ fluttering beneath her rib cage.

“I would have if anyone had asked my opinion, but you know how things go around here,” he said, shaking his head. “I probably sound crazy.”

“You don’t,” Kuvira said. “You’re making more sense to me than anyone has in a long time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, everyone! Now commencing friends to lovers romance lol.


End file.
